


some girls

by honey_wheeler



Category: Harry Potter RPF
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, ages ago there was (probably false) <b><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/22034997.html">post</a></b>, and then, also ages ago, a friend said “She said ‘Honestly, Rupert’ while she scourgified him,” and now there’s this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some girls

It’s like a scene out of one of the books. The bloke acting like a stupid git is a former friend instead of a Malfoy and they’re at a party instead of in some school hallway, but the pertinent bits are the same: the foul behaviour, the shouting, the bloody knuckles. All that’s missing is-

“Honestly, Rupert,” Emma sighs.

“Ah, there it is,” he says. She quirks an eyebrow at him in question. “You sounded just like Hermione.”

“Well, you’d acted just like Ron,” is her acid response, but her touch is gentle as she captures his hand to inspect his knuckles. “You’re bleeding.”

“That’s what happens when you punch your arsehole former friend in the teeth.” He half expects her to lecture him on how violence doesn’t solve anything, but then she knows all about Josh, so maybe he should give her more credit.

Sure enough, she only says, “We should get this washed up. His face didn’t look too clean, you don’t want an infection.” Her mouth twitches, and he feels his own curve into a slight smile at her barb.

“Hermione and Madam Pomfrey all in one,” he says, but he allows her to steer him to the back of the club all the same.

He’s not sure what the room is for. There’s a sink and a counter, but it looks more like a darkroom than a kitchen, lit by a couple of unshaded red bulbs dangling from the ceiling. She lets the door shut behind her and it’s like they’re in some sort of art house film, everything black and red and dramatic. It’s kind of wicked, actually.

“I should do my bedroom like this,” he says. She greets that with the patient sigh she seems to reserve exclusively for him. Then she ruins the effect by flipping on the fluorescent over the sink. He leans back against the counter, legs outstretched, and watches her step over his feet in the narrow space to get to the sink. She’s wearing some new perfume, something a bit heavier than what she usually wears. No doubt she’d be shocked to learn that he’s noticed the difference.

“Here.” Emma gestures for him to hold out his hand and guides it under the tap. “This would be easier if we were actually wizards.”

“True of many things,” he laughs. “You could use that…what is it, the scour one.”

“Scourgify,” she reminds him. She’s far better at remembering all those spells and wizard words than he is. He’s rubbish at it, really. Silently, she cleans his bloody knuckles, pulling his other hand across his chest when she finishes the first. It occurs to him that if she got down on her knees to undo his trousers, it’d be a perfect nurse-and-patient fantasy. Not that he’d tell her such a thing. Somehow he thinks it would go less “your cock is both lovely and enormous,” and more slapping-and-storming-out. It isn’t until both hands are clean and she’s patting them dry with a towel that she looks up at him again.

“You really ought not to go about punching people, you know,” she says. “Even if they deserve it.”

“He _did_ deserve it, though,” he grumbles. He sounds like a surly teenager even to himself. She’s rummaging through the cupboards looking for something now and he can’t help noticing the pale, soft-looking strip of skin that shows at her stomach when she stretches on her tiptoes and her shirt hem rides up. He clears his throat. “Weren’t you the least bit impressed by my fighting prowess?”

“Am I to call you a big strong man now?” she asks, then makes a sound of triumph and pulls a white plastic first aid kit down from a shelf.

“Yes, please,” he says. “All the time, actually, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Mmm,” she hums noncommittally. She finds a can of anti-bacterial spray in the kit. It’s cool on his knuckles, stinging enough to make him wince. He expects her to tease him for being such a baby, but instead she lifts both of his hands and blows on the scrapes. Part of him wants to laugh – it’s such a mum thing to do – but suddenly his gut is tied in knots and his pulse is going about ten times faster than normal. He takes a deep breath and follows the zig-zaggy part of her hair with his eyes.

“You look nice tonight,” he says. Like he’s just noticed. Like he didn’t notice the second she walked in the front door with her friends. She gives him pursed lips, an impressively arched eyebrow.

“I do attempt to clean up from time to time.” He laughs. She dresses to the nines more often than not. He always looks like a hobo next to her at premieres.

“You always look nice,” he says, and he’s pleased to see her cheeks color in the dim light.

“All done,” she says, her voice brisk. She drops the spray into the plastic bin and closes the lid with a snap. She reaches behind him, switches the light over the sink off, and they’re in that red-and-black art house movie again and he doesn’t want her to go yet.

“Wait,” he says, catching her wrist as she steps over his outstretched legs. She freezes, their feet alternating like the teeth of a zipper. “You didn’t kiss to make it better.” What possesses him to say it, he isn’t sure. There’s still room to retreat, though; if she laughs, he can laugh as well, they can treat it as a great joke. But if she doesn’t… If she doesn’t laugh… She studies him, maybe trying to figure out if she’s _supposed_ to laugh, and he wishes he could read minds right now.

Slowly, she raises his hand, dropping her head to meet it. He feels instead of sees the careful, hesitant brush of her lips over each knuckle, starting with his index finger and ending on his pinkie. She lifts her head, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and her face is amused. Defiant. Vulnerable.

“And this one,” he says, wiggling his other hand. The play of emotions on her face is complicated. Rupert usually hates complicated. He shouldn’t be so glad when she lifts his other hand and gives it the same ministrations. He expects her to move away then, but she doesn’t. He shouldn’t press his luck but he does anyway.

“And here.” His voice is barely more than a rumble in his throat as he taps one finger against the side of his jaw.

“I must have missed the part where you got hit in the face,” she says with some of her old tartness, and he thinks he might have lost her there.

“You did. Fists of fury, that one, so fast as to be invisible to the naked eye.” Oh, he shouldn’t have said naked. He keeps giving himself ideas and only getting himself in deeper.

Still, he’s prepared to back down, to let her go while they can both pretend it’s just harmless drunk flirtation that they can both brush aside later, though neither of them has had much in the way of alcohol as far as he can tell. To his intense surprise, though, she tilts her face up and presses her lips to the spot where his finger had been.

Wordlessly, he taps the other side of his jaw. Again, she follows, her lips soft and warm on his skin. And then he’s really lost his mind, because he’s setting his finger against his lips and challenging with his eyes, daring her to do it even as she’s hesitantly leaning closer. Maybe she would have stopped. Maybe she would have shied away, but he’ll never know because he closes the gap between them, meeting her halfway before she might have reconsidered.

It’s a strange sort of kiss, halfway between a friendly peck and a proper snog. The exact sort of kiss to leave him wondering, considering, imagining. The exact sort of kiss that has him holding her by the elbows when she leans back to look at him, some inscrutable expression on her face.

“Oh, I don’t think we’re done yet,” he says. The skin on the inside of her elbows is crazy soft.

“I thought you said it’d be like kissing your sister,” she reminds him. He shrugs, circles his thumbs on that soft skin.

“I lied. Or I was wrong. Take your pick.” He doesn’t care which she chooses, as long as she lets him kiss her again. Of course, nothing can be that simple with Emma, though.

“The truth isn’t exactly a matter of choice, Rupert,” she says with a frown, her lips compressing into that prim line he knows all too well. The bugger of it is that he still wants to kiss her again, even looking so buttoned up and disapproving.

“What’s truth in the face of love?” he asks theatrically and that’s enough to get the primness out of her.

“Oh, this is love then, is it?” she asks, grinning at him now. She looks so much younger when she smiles. It’s one of the few times he remembers that he’s actually older than she is.

“Or thereabouts,” he teases, and she doesn’t move away when he kisses her again, nor when he traces the seam of her lips with his tongue and licks his way inside. Which is bloody brilliant, by the way. He should have done it ages ago.

His hands are on his waist now, her hips settled firmly between his thighs. She’s got her arms tucked up against her chest with her hands curled under her chin – a last subconscious attempt at propriety, he supposes, that’s nonetheless wasted since she’s plastered against him otherwise. Her arse is proving an almost irresistible temptation. His hands itch to slide down and grab it. That’s only the beginning of what he wants to do, really, and he’d like to tell her so, but he knows he shouldn’t. Emma’s the kind of girl you respect enough to pretend you don’t want to do all the filthy things you really want to do to her. So instead he lets her end the kiss and duck her head shyly against his shoulder.

“They’ll be looking for us,” she says. He’s pleased to hear her voice is unsteady.

“I suppose they will,” he agrees.

“We should go back out.”

“Indeed.”

Still, she makes no move. He smiles against the crown of her hair. Maybe there will be a chance to talk her into that arse-grabbing at a later date. The thought is enough to cheer him into taking pity on her.

“Come on, then.” He pushes away from the counter, taking her by the shoulders and guiding her towards the door. He pauses with his hand on the knob, though, and turns to look at her. “Thank you for the patch job.”

She looks embarrassed by the sincerity in his voice, but pleased. “You’re welcome,” she says. It’s a nice moment. Perfect way for them to go back to reality. Of course, Rupert never could leave well enough alone.

“Hopefully next time I’ll get hit in the crotch,” he adds brightly. She wrinkles her nose, confused. “You know, so you can kiss and make it better, oh ho!” She makes an exasperated noise, her eyes rolling massively.

“Don’t press your luck, Rupert,” she tells him and shoulders past him to open the door. But she’s smiling, he can tell.


End file.
